How Russia Got Big

How Russia Got Big accounts for Russias changing physical scope over some seven centuries. Beginning with the small principality of Moscow in the early 14th century, the book recounts the construction of the worlds largest country in the form of the Russian Empire and the USSR, as well as its collapse and territorial restriction on two separate occasions. Integrating topics of geography, diplomacy, migration, and environment, and supported by 15 helpful maps, Paul W. Werth ranges across three continents and accordingly asserts a significant role for Russia in world history. Werth contemplates different ways of conceptualizing territorial possession and related understandings of sovereignty, authority, and belonging. The result is a grand story from a birds-eye view, one that revels in details connected with territorial oddities such as exclaves, diplomatic compounds, and spheres of influence and which is as concise as it is wholly original.